1. Technical Field
This invention relates to elevator hall call assignments in a dispatching methodology in which saving energy is given greater consideration than minimizing response time to to reach a call, so long as the call can be reached within an upper limit of time.
2. Background Art
The simplest of elevator dispatching concepts is to determine which car can reach the call first. This creates bunching and is otherwise undesirable. Therefore, there are innumerable other dispatching concepts which have been practiced over the years. In one well-known concept, often called “relative response time”, various penalties and bonuses are assigned in order to provide the dispatching methodology with responses that relatively reflect desired attributes of good hall call allocation. This type of hall call allocation is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,363,381 and 5,024,295.
In the aforesaid patents, energy savings is given consideration by not starting a car that has its drive shut off, unless, after assigning a penalty to it, it turns out to be the best car after all, with all the other considerations taken into account. Those patents are a reflection of the times; as energy savings becomes a more important feature of an elevator, the need becomes stronger that saving energy has a more prominent role in dispatching.